The Pope's 10 tips for happiness

By Jay Parini

updated 2:21 PM EDT, Tue August 5, 2014

Pope Francis greets the crowd as he arrives for his general audience at St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Wednesday, October 8. With his penchant for crowd-pleasing and spontaneous acts of compassion, the Pope has earned high praise from fellow Catholics and others since he replaced Pope Benedict XVI in March 2013.

Pope Francis speaks during the feast-day Mass on a one-day trip to the Calabrian region of Italy on Saturday, June 21. The Pope spoke out against the Mafia's "adoration of evil and contempt for the common good," and declared that "mafiosi are excommunicated, not in communion with God.'

The Pope meets faithfuls as he visits the San Gregorio Parish in Rome on Sunday, April 6.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have an audience with the Pope during their one-day visit to Rome on April 3.

Francis speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama, who visited the Vatican on March 27.

The Pope blesses the altar at Rome's Santa Sabina church as he celebrates Mass on March 5, Ash Wednesday.

Daniele De Sanctis, a 19-month-old child dressed up as a pope, is handed to Francis as the pontiff is driven through the crowd February 26 at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican.

Wind blows the papal skullcap off Pope Francis' head February 19 in St. Peter's Square.

A lamb is placed around Francis' neck as he visits a living nativity scene staged at the St. Alfonso Maria de' Liguori parish church, on the outskirts of Rome, on January 6.

The Pope holds a baby Jesus during a Christmas Eve Mass held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in 2013.

Pope Francis, right, meets with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican on December 23. Benedict surprised the world by resigning "because of advanced age." It was the first time a pope has stepped down in nearly 600 years.

Pope Francis marked his 77th birthday on December 17 by hosting homeless men to a Mass and a meal at the Vatican. One of the men brought his dog.

Pope Francis embraced Vinicio Riva, a disfigured man who suffers from a non-infectious genetic disease, during a public audience November 6 at the Vatican. Riva then buried his head in the Pope's chest.

Pope Francis jokes November 6 with members of the Rainbow Association, which uses clown therapy in hospitals, nursing homes and orphanages.

A young boy hugs Francis as he delivers a speech October 26 in St. Peter's Square. The boy, part of a group of children sitting around the stage, played around the Pope as the Pope continued his speech and occasionally patted the boy's head.

Francis has eschewed fancy cars. Here, Father Don Renzo Zocca, second from right, offers his white Renault 4L to the Pope during a meeting September 7 at the Vatican.

Francis has his picture taken inside St. Peter's Basilica with youths who came to Rome for a pilgrimage in August.

During an impromptu news conference on July 29, aboard a plane from Brazil to Rome, the Pope said about gay priests, "Who am I to judge?" Many saw the move as the opening of a more tolerant era in the Catholic Church.

Crowds swarm the Pope as he makes his way through World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro on July 27. According to the Vatican, 1 million people turned out to see the Pope.

Francis frees a dove May 15 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

Francis embraces a young boy with cerebral palsy on March 31, 2013, a gesture that many took as a heartwarming token of his self-stated desire to "be close to the people."

The Pope washes the feet of juvenile offenders, including Muslim women, as part of Holy Thursday rituals on March 28, 2013. The act commemorates Jesus' washing of the Apostles' feet during the Last Supper.

Francis stands at the reception desk of the Domus Internationalis Paulus VI residence, where he paid the bill for his stay during the conclave that would elect him leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

Francis, formerly known as Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected the Roman Catholic Church's 266th Pope on March 13, 2013. The first pontiff from Latin America was also the first to take the name Francis.

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

In an interview, Pope Francis laid out 10-point plan for happiness

Among them: Live and let live; move quietly in world; Sunday is for family; enjoy leisure

One that surprises Jay Parini is not to proselytize

Parini says the Pope urges us to think innovatively about how to create peace

Editor's note:Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has just published "Jesus: The Human Face of God," a biography of Jesus. Follow him on Twitter @JayParini. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- Just when I thought my amazement with Pope Francis had run its course, he did it again. In a long interview with an old friend who was writing for an Argentine magazine, the pope put forward a 10-point plan for happiness. From where I sit, it seems, well, pretty damn good if not perfect. Here are Pope Francis' tips for a happy life and my comments on them:

1. Live and let live. It's an echo of the Pope's earlier remark on gays: "Who am I to judge?" Moreover, it's what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: "Judge not, unless you want to be judged yourself." (Matthew 7:1)

Jay Parini

2. Give yourself to others. That is, give your money and your time to those in need. Don't just sit around like stagnant water. Give all you have and then some.

3 Move quietly in the world. The Pope quotes from a favorite novel by an early 20th-century Argentine writer, Ricardo Guiraldes, in which the novelist writes that in one's youth, a person is "a rocky stream that runs over everything," but as one gets older, one becomes "a running river, quietly peaceful." It's very like the Native American suggestion that one should walk "in balance and beauty" on the ground, making the least disturbance.

4. Enjoy leisure. The Pope says that consumerism has brought with it unbearable anxieties. So play with your children. Take time off. And don't spend all your time thinking about your next acquisition. Spend your time well, not your money.

5. Sunday is for families. This is actually one of the Ten Commandments. Honor the Sabbath. (Exodus 20:8) Once a week, give a whole day to meditation, worship, family life, tending the needs of the spirit. This is healthy living.

6. Find jobs for young people. Who would have guessed that job-creation would be on list for happiness? But the Pope is right. Honest, simple work for young people is essential to their well-being. Somewhat surprisingly, in this moment in the interview, the Pope connected job creation to the degradation of our environment: "the tyrannical use of nature." He links the lack of good jobs to the lack of respect for ourselves and the Earth itself.

So creating jobs doesn't mean ruining the environment. It doesn't mean, as the politicians chant, "jobs, jobs, jobs." Good and productive labor is valuable, and it doesn't mean you have to have a fancy job description. You don't have to become rich. You can be ordinary. Happiness lies there. Do good work, create good work for others.

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7. Respect nature. This follows from No. 6. "Isn't humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?" the Pope wonders. Not surprisingly, this is what Henry David Thoreau, a founding father of the environmental movement, said. "Most people live lives of quiet desperation," he said. He went into the woods, to Walden Pond, because he wanted "to live deliberately" and to "front only the essential facts of life."

A proper respect for nature means that you can't pollute the air, poison the rivers and chop down the forests indiscriminately without suffering greatly. I suspect that a huge amount of the anxiety and suffering that we see around can be closely traced to our wanton misuse of our resources. Just look at any garbage dump and see what is wasted. In a sense, we've wasted our souls.

8. Let go of negative things quickly. The Pope tells us not to complain about people who annoy or frustrate us, to let go of things as rapidly as we can. I have an old friend who used to say, "Put the bad things in your back pocket and leave them there." This may sound like escapism or putting your head in the sand, but it's more interesting than that. Life throws rotten things our way each day. People say nasty things to us, often about others. This stuff makes them miserable, of course. It makes us miserable, too. Flush it.

9. Don't preach your religion too forcefully. Proselytism brings on paralysis, the Pope tells us. Wow. I'm a Christian myself, and I don't mind saying so. But each person sees the world before them in his or her own way. The Pope says this. As a teaching, it seems to run counter to the so-called Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). Jesus said to get out there and spread the word. But the Pope takes a relaxed view of this activity, preferring that we should teach by example. Perhaps that really is what Jesus would do?

10. Work for peace. The Pope has preached this message from the beginning of his time as pontiff. He has gone to Jerusalem and worked to bring together Jews and Palestinians. He has prayed for peace and worked for peace. He has listened closely to Jesus, who said, "blessed are the peacemakers."

The Pope asks us to take in refugees, to think innovatively about how to create peace in the world. Jesus, of course, invites us to turn the other cheek when struck. This is a complex teaching. But it's essential to Christian faith. The Pope, once again, calls on us to take the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount seriously. This is very hard but crucial work.

Pope Francis has, in this unlikely venue, given us his own Sermon on the Mount, his Ten Commandments for happiness and inner peace. One can only be grateful for his wisdom, which is rooted in a sincere faith, in hard-earned wisdom, and a very practical knowledge of human needs and potentials.